I have been following the development of drones with keen interest over the years. Simply from a flying perspective they looked like fun for someone who grew up making model aeroplanes, but the real interest was as an affordable aerial photography platform. With the launch of the DJI Mavic Pro, drone photography became a reasonable option for me to consider. The reason for this is that the folding Mavic Pro is small enough to fit in a camera bag to easily carry and use as option when needed. Models like the DJI Phantom are excellent but just too large to be carried as well as photography gear and I would not have taken one unless I specifically had a plan to use it. It would be an either drone or camera gear decision. The folding Mavic Pro is just so small and light that it can be carried along with the camera gear and be there as an option all the time. The recently launched DJI Spark is even smaller and lighter but doesn’t fold so is not useful to me.

Preparing the Mavic Pro for flight is extremely quick and easy. A smartphone connects and is attached to the controller easily and the Mavic unfolds and is ready to fly within a minute or so. Flight is extremely simple with the ridiculous amount of technology built into the machine. In simplest mode the Mavic will take off at the touch of an on screen icon and hover steadily awaiting instruction. It will equally return to the take-off location automatically when recalled. Footage from the camera streams back to the smartphone screen and the gimble and camera is easily controlled. Flight time is well over 25 minutes per battery so with the 3 batteries with the Fly More package you have well over an  hour of flight time if needed. The only time I have needed more than 1 battery is when flying for fun so 1 is plenty for a simple photography job. 

The Mavic Pro is incredibly stable in flight and I have found it useful to take images to use for panorama stitching. This has the added benefit of increasing the megapixel count for an image. The elevated perspective really adds a new dimension to what can be photographed. This photo of the Glenorchy Peaks B&B that we stayed at, really shows it nicely in context which a ground level photo would not do as well. This image in now being used for promotion on their Glenorchy Peaks website and I can really recommend it as a great place to stay.

My first opportunity to use it seriously was on a recent trip to the South Island and I really enjoyed the ability to get some different images. The 12 MP camera can record RAW files in DNG format so you have a decent amount of data to work with in Lightroom and Photoshop. While not quite the quality available from a a DSLR sensor I have been quite impressed with the results when used for landscape photos. It would be nice to have the image quality of a Phantom 4 but the convenience of the portable Mavic Pro wins out for me.   

I purchased my DJI Mavic Pro from Ferntech and can recommend their service. If you would like to see what I packed into my bag with the Mavic Pro for this trip see this video that Paul made for our channel.